Jim Warman

Organic? The cow, the salad or the shit?

This is an actual, honest to God help request from i-ATN... "This car actually has a 351W. The problem I have is that I have to replace the head gaskets. My question is which way do the gaskets go? The reason I ask is this is the second time around. Both gaskets have front stamped on them. (That is where the coolant ports are cut out) I have been told one goes to the back...and...both go to the back for proper cooling." I am fucking lost for words...

Was he using ether? Did it eventually start? How does it run if it started? Do I need to pull teeth?

That be the one.... An interesting side note... The magazine was called CARtoons, published by (IIRC) Petersen Publishing... T'would be circa 1962 and some kid wrote a letter to the editor promising he would one day jump the Grand Canyon on a motorcycle... Evel himself publicly stated that the idea came to him in 1966... me? I'm not so sure.... Your pic is (another IIRC) an AMT offering from that period... Ed "Big Daddy" Roth (along with guys like Dean Jefferies, Bill Cushenberry, Sam Barris and Gene Winfield) turned the automobile into an art form. The stylized RatFink was born .... And a whole generation of young gear heads knew exactly what "Where's Von Dutch?" was all about...

So... a customer came in with a noise that bothered him..... for about 60,000 kms, this noise has bothered him... Another store simply said... "Oh, that's normal"... Even my tinitis couldn't hide the noise he was talking about... All of my attention was focussed on both his "normal" tick - the one on the drivers side - and his "not so normal" tick. This was on the passenger side... The truck ran smooth but I did the contribution test and the relative compression test (hey, they drive the billable hours up, right?) with no problems found. I was so concerned with the passenger side tick that I think I overlooked a louder than average intake noise.... for the first while... I removed some parts (oil/vapour separator included) and isolated my errant tick to the front of bank one. Off with the valve cover and the intake rocker arm is damaged (the clip is missing off the shoe that rides on the crosshead...whoops, old Jimmy diesel term, there... valve bridge is what I guess is the PC term). Replace the rocker arm, fire it up and THE FUCKING TICK IS STILL THERE... except now I think "Hmmmm , that intake is a tad noisey...". OK.. rerun relative compression... why? I dunno... Maybe I screwed up before... I'm a fussy old man. Rerun contribution... see above.... What could be left? I settled on checking lobe lift on the cam... simply because there was nothing left to do before pulling the cab... The lobe in question had lost over 0.100" of lift. Referring to a thread in the 6.0 forum.... I didn't perform a manual compression test because nothing indicated the need for it. The reason that a manual test wasn't required was because of the symptoms I was chasing (the noise). Had the symptoms been different, a manual compression test might have been called for. We use our God given senses to perform appropriate test steps ( in spite of Fords limp dick circuit test procedures - an ohmmeter to test grounds?????) but we need to consider both the test and the results... FWIW, I have seen an engine pass the crankcase pressure test handily with two or more non-contributing cylinders. Fix those cylinders so that they kinda work and... Holeeee Sheeeit!!!!

This is what I'm preaching, Mike... Relative compression is a decent test... but only for what it is decent at. And it is up to us to decide what is and isn't relevant. Like what's being said... if you have a dead miss on one hole and relative compression turns up good, you have a better than even chance that the concern will be outside the cylinder. If your hearing is sharp, there may be the off chance that you can hear the change in cranking RPM as any bad holes come up on compression (after all, the PCM is only watching for an rpm change..... for those familiar with the SUN Interrogator 2, the MCA 300 and some of the old Bear diagnostic scopes, the machine would watch for a change in cranking amperage....). Relative compression is a decent tool... but only if it is used properly. A word about manual compression testing... This has been an accepted industry practice for decades. Back when we dealt with carburators, we had some assurance that most all of the cylinders received roughly the same amount of fuel... Today, each cylinder (gas or diesel) has it's own, personal source of fuel... if one cylinder is washed down, it isn't going to look particularly good. Doing a wet test on that cylinder could screw us up if we don't look at all of our indicators. Look in the 6.4 forum for one of my current projects.

I can't see anyway to say this without sounding like an absolute dick... so I'll forge ahead anyway. If you are installing a new or "rebuilt" crank... you wash it and inspect it... If you are installing a new or "rebuilt " cam.. you wash it and inspect it... If you are installing new main or rod bearings... you wash them and inspect them.... (OMG, I hope I'm right!!!) Why would an oil cooler or and oil cooler service kit be any different?

Shifting the focus back to the blue oval here.... does anyone recall (IIRC it was called ) "The Ballad of Stroker McGurk"? 'I was stopped at a red light in my 406 Runnin' 3 two barrels and a 4 speed stick I glanced in the mirror and comin' up behind Was a loud red Chevy with a 409.' Ahhh... the old days. Dirt was white and my pet dinosaur played fetch with me.

Was this a diesel?

I work in a dealership shop.... We charge between 20 and 40 bucks an hour more than those pesky fucking independants we all seem to hate... We charge more because we are better than they are.... People pay us more because they expect better than they give... And we are going to chop their carpets to shreds? I have been called "fussy".... I could make more money elsewhere with less effort... But then I'd be one of the guys we complain about.... How would any of us feel about paying someone to do whgat we do? How much will you pay me to cut your carpet rather than choosing another method? Would you like me cutting your carpet? I often help a friend in his catering business... have you ever barbecued 1000 steaks in a single afternoon? If you wont eat it - don't try to feed it to someone else.... FWIW... if you cut my carpet.... you will sing soprano... Sorry man... that's just me. Do you want to pound burgers at a McDonalds? Or would you like Gordon Ramsay to pay you big bucks?

What is interesting.... Ford appears to be sticking with fuel being injected during the exhaust stroke for active regen. That a regen is being done in an "active" manner would suggest that combustion chamber temps are cooler than optimum.... which would suggest that wet stacking could be a factor... and this might also suggest that the fuel injected into a somewhat cool cylinder might evaporate.... (now... evaporation is an endothermic change of state. As our liquid changes state from a vapour to a gas, the surrounding area must "give up" latent heat during the process... I'll muddle this up at the end)... What this all boils (gratuitous pun) down to is trying to save money and I firmly believe that this will bite Ford in the ass. Mack (for one, at least) and I am unsure of how many others, use a dedicated fuel injector... Macks appears to be downstream of the turbo... to supply the heat required to initiate an active regen... This downstream injector can't possibly interfere with cylinder thermodynamics. So... WTF is this "endothermic" bullshit? For a "mild" demonstration, spill some gasoline or brake clean on your skin... As the liquid evaporates (i.e. changes state from liquid to vapour), you will notice the "endothermic"... Warming the liquid takes little from your skin in the way of latent heat... making the liquid change state from liquid to vapour... major heat absorption. If you can understand "wind chill factor" properly, you have a handle on it... So.... one of the problems we have seen with the 7.3..... with the 6.0... with the 6.4... has been wet stacking... With the 6.4 and the 6.7... we are going to give the opportunity to further cool an already cool combustion chamber - and wonder why we have a motor that "makes oil". But... me being a high school drop out, I wouldn't have the foggiest notion about some of this stuff - and I sure wouldn't pretend to offer an opinion that I expected anyone to consider. Sidebar... in the early 80's we saw Escort mufflers freeze off in cold weather... In the early 21st century, we saw history repeat itself with the Escort... There are many ways to spell "DUH" - are any of them right? Anyway... something you might consider "scarey".... The Chevy 409 was rather unique for its day... The cylinder head casting was flat and the combustion chambers were cast into the piston. technology has, once again, taken a serious step... (do I dare say 'forward'? or do I say in "A" direction?). Ladies and gentlemen.. welcome to the new era...

I took a big chunk out of one thumb this AYEM... that'll teach me for not wearing my cap....

I wouldn't try this with a two post hoist... but I have used what is called a "bay lift" (haven't seen one for years). Slide it under the back of a RWD with a solid axle and hoist away... You could lift the car up onto the front bumper, slide a couple of jack stands under close to the front and drop the lift down level... the car is now a couple of feet off the ground... Unsafe? I see guys lifting on a two post using only two arms....

Some highlights.... The intake valves on the 6.2 look to be huge... the spark plug and cable arrangment "strongly suggests" a waste spark setup... I envision one positive plug and one negative plug per cylinder. The 6.7 will have an exhaust brake that works in conjunction with the tow/haul feature. Remote start and 110 volt inverter are standard on some models... The new transmission (if equipped with the PTO provision) will be capable of pump and roll operation... the PTO will continue to function even when you are stopped. They are suggesting a 150,000 mile service interval for the trans. Torque converter locks up at 900 rpm... Rick Titus mentions "double overdrive top gears"... I'm assuming that this means the two highest ratios are both overdriven... The grille (Dwayne will be happy to know) doesn't open with the hood. Specialty orange coolant is required with a test interval of 15000 miles. We all know what will happen here... The truck is available with a 5th wheel mount provision and even an in box 7 pin trailer plug. And yes, they talk about installing service bodies. All in all, it looks like they did their homework on these trucks...

Ford has released the web based training course 30N37W0 - 2011 Super Duty new model training... I've only just started it but, early in the course, it directs us to a video on Ford Tube ( http://fordtube.dealerconnection.com/video.php?video_key=afd4b01b3ca03f8baa857761a0b953b1 for those that can access it) that is proving to be quite interesting... The vid is 42 minutes long so make sure you have a beverage...

"Cut corners".... just kinda makes my teeth itch.... At one point in time, I almost thought that a concerted effort might make Ford wake up vis-a-vis SLTs.... Realizing that it is easier to kvetch than do anything else, I think we are at the point where everything is getting dumbed down... soon, we will see one or two diagnosticians and a fistful of trained apes at any given dealer... I dare anyone to tell me that this would be "surprising".

Warren Johnson at FRT post this video... He titled the thread "How to beat flat rate"... I watched until about the 3 minute mark without seeing anything earth shattering... Clickee

There's always the Mexican Manual Regen...

I'm a 7 3/8ths AFTER a haircut....

One would have to define "broken" before you could even SWAG.... Without knowing the nature of the failure, what are you gong to surmise? Bent? Bent where? Burned? Burned how? Mushroomed - tuliped - spit a keeper out - spit a crosshead out - makes a noise (oooooh, I got one of them) - spit a rocker swivel out - I've seen a lot of broken shit in the last 40 years.... What separates us from civilians is that we realize "broken" has a lot of different faces.... and we reason shit out from there.

Consider it this way, Larry... We don't <HAVE> to wear them (it's not yet a dictatorship).... but, if you injure yourself and aren't wearing one, there is a chance that you WCB coverage may be denied... I am one of those guys that is concerned about "lost time incidents" and I don't like it when people get hurt on "my shift". I also have to wonder when I'm going to be involved in some sort of civil litigation... Sidebar... before I go any further, I have to say that I have also had to remind guys about footwear and eye protection.... Anyway, how long before me and my employer are named in a lawsuit... "I told him to wear <YADDA>"... may not be enough tomorrow or the next day... I might be forced into saying "You have to wear <YADDA> or go home"... Might come to that but it will be counterproductive. Bottom line... shit happens and some guys attract it... I don't want to see anyone get hurt, but I can't force him to do anything... But you can bet your sweet ass that some bleeding heart liberal will say it is my fault that somebody else didn't wear some protective gear. I wear mine trying to set an example. The company supplies the caps to avoid an employee saying there wasn't one to be worn... Being an old timey guy, I always believed that the man that was willing to work, came to work with boots, gloves and safety glasses.. Now-a-days, it is "I will make myself blind if you let me...". Where does it end? I don't know... but I am trying, desperately, to cover my ass in an insane world.

If the 5R110 sees much in the way of a trans concern, it is going to do two things... It will skip any non-viable shifts - if TranRat and GearRat aren't what the TCM expects to see, it will declare a friction member is unusable and go into self-preservation mode (my term). You will see codes and the GearRat PID should show you as starting out in too high a gear (most bad stuff with the TorqueShift seems to affect the low/reverse shit first so you'd likely be starting out in about 3rd). I'd have a hard time with two transmissions in a row with the same symptoms... If the motor is having a hard time building power, stall testing the TC might give bogus results. Been a while since I had to go into a TorqueShift but I think there is a TCC slip PID there, somewhere. If the trans and motor are both in decent shape, expect a stall speed in the 2000~2200ish range (caution, memory thing happening). Crankcase pressure test.... I don't want to sound like wiener but you didn't use the 7.3 orifice by mistake, did you? Relative compression... good for finding a bad cylinder or two but useless at diagnosing a dusted motor... Comparing a bad cylinder to another bad cylinder isn't going anywhere. Good luck... FWIW, if the other shop said they did <something> double check them, anyway...

The pants are OK... it's the baggy belly that's 14 sizes too big I'm living proof that you can dress 'em up but you can't take 'em anywhere.

For your reading pleasure....